Saturday, February 6, 2010

I was thinking today about contests. Whatever happened to those unique prizes that everyone was so excited about, they gave up their hard earned 5 cents, or whatever postage was at the time to enter the contest.

Back in the early 80s, I had a subscription to the Greene County News, a newspaper out of the Catskill NY region. One of the highlights (for me anyway) was a picture of a spaceship along the side of Route 66 in Ghent NY. The story is that it was a prize in a cereal contest in the 50s or 60s. The ‘spaceship’ was built on a semi truck trailer’s chassis, so that is how it was delivered. Somehow it made it to Ghent, to a car repair shop and there the story ends. I’ve been by this shop hundreds of times, and one of these days in the near future I’m going to stop and inquire about the spaceship. I think it would be a really cool thing to own.

I remember this contest, and the group, so whatever happened to the Raspberries Rolls? How long would someone drive this car before selling it, or painting it?

But the neatest thing for me to drive would be the wiener mobile, for the obvious reason my name is Frank.